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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28682100">our own design</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralgayanddumbassaoyama/pseuds/feralgayanddumbassaoyama'>feralgayanddumbassaoyama</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Homemaker [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Parental Barriss Offee, through tears shes mom...</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:35:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>817</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28682100</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralgayanddumbassaoyama/pseuds/feralgayanddumbassaoyama</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Barriss has a talk with the children about the future</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Barriss Offee &amp; Zinn Toa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Homemaker [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090586</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>our own design</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>A year and a day after every Jedi in the galaxy was told to leave the Temple and never return, Barriss Offee sits the children (her children, her mind whispers, and she ignores it, Order rules about attachment be damned, because that was their choice and that is not one they’ve made yet) down to talk.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They are quiet younglings, all three of them, for which she is both extremely glad, and extremely guilty. Younglings shouldn’t be that quiet, Barriss thinks. Even she had run and laughed and shouted as a child, which they certainly did, but they could also drop to dead silence at even a moment’s notice, knew how to hide better than they ever should have needed, which were experiences she could never claim to share, not at that age.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Roo-Roo and Wee and Zinn stare at her, and she stares back.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you happy here?” she asks. “Not just on this planet, but with me.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There are… other survivors, that Barriss knew. Logistically speaking, there </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be, even if most of them had likely been Shadows deep in cover or untrained younglings out on an excursion, or Padawans small enough to get into hiding places that troopers couldn’t reach, or, or… </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The four of them couldn’t be the only ones. Barriss refuses to believe it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Three</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she mentally corrects herself, </span>
  <em>
    <span>the three of them can’t be the only ones</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She wasn’t a Jedi, and she hadn’t been for years, and she knew for a fact that whatever miracle had seen her freed from the Republic prisons had also seen that she wasn’t on any Imperial wanted lists.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She had checked. Many times.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You keep us safe,” Roo-Roo says slowly, as though testing the words, rolling them around in her mouth, considering them. Before, such deliberation from one who by all rights should still be a crecheling would have amused Barriss. Now it just made her sad. She shouldn’t have to be so careful with her words!</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, but are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>happy</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” she presses. She isn’t sure what answer she’s looking for — a no, confirming her fears that she would perpetually be nothing more than a terrorist who ostracized and hurt her one and only friend and was only capable of doing more of the same to everyone around her? Or a yes, an assurance that here, at least, she was wanted, she was </span>
  <em>
    <span>needed</span>
  </em>
  <span>?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Barriss had idly considered setting down roots here, on this planet that was completely devoid of other sentients, and which appeared on no Imperial star-charts, and was too close to the Unknown Regions to have any sort of Imperial presence beyond the hypothetical. It wasn’t until Zinn had smiled at her, and smiling with toddler innocence, all teeth in the way once-apex predators tended to, if they weren’t socialized out of it (and Barriss had no plans to do </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>), and asked about setting up a saltwater pool, because the freshwater was </span>
  <em>
    <span>fine</span>
  </em>
  <span> but it wasn’t as good, </span>
  <em>
    <span>please</span>
  </em>
  <span>?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Barriss had very nearly felt her heart stop, and then gave some vague platitude of a reply and then when they were all put down for naps she went and had a breakdown because Zinn had been with her nearly </span>
  <em>
    <span>half his life</span>
  </em>
  <span> and, and — and they wouldn’t even remember the Temple, as adults, as teenagers, in just a few </span>
  <em>
    <span>years</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The Temple was the only place she could remember being truly happy.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Duh,” Wee says. “You’re our…” he pauses, three year old mind struggling to come up with a word for what Barriss was to them.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They knew what parents were, and what teachers were, if not from memory, then from holo-programs or the books she read to them (actual </span>
  <em>
    <span>books</span>
  </em>
  <span>, good </span>
  <em>
    <span>heavens</span>
  </em>
  <span> this truly was rustic, a voice that sounded like Luminara Unduli said in Barriss’s mind, and Barriss knew her former Master well enough to know that when she said </span>
  <em>
    <span>rustic</span>
  </em>
  <span> she meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>backwater</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>that wasn’t important right now</span>
  </em>
  <span>.) </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re ours,” he says, apparently not turning up a suitable word in his limited vocabulary. There is a pressure in Barriss’s sternum, and a persistent itching in her eyes that tells her she would be crying, if she had not long ago trained herself out of that.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” she whispers, “I’m yours.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The three younglings continue to look at her, just </span>
  <em>
    <span>look</span>
  </em>
  <span> at her, and she realizes she’s not finished. What a funny feeling, to have children know she wants to speak before she herself does.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“And you’re mine,” she says to them, and Roo-Roo yells in excitement as though she is only just now realizing it, and Wee claps, and Zinn — Zinn gets up on unsteady toddler legs, and walks over to her, still more at home in water than on land, and falls in her lap, and says—</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“We love you, Mama.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His smile, when he says it, shows almost all of his teeth.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>find me on tumblr at dykepixie !</p></blockquote></div></div>
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